The sun was gone. Only a bruised-red line remained above the trees.

  Riley was pinned against the wall by nothing but her fear.

  Whatever was outside sounded like it could come in any second. Riley had to make her move now or this would surely be her end.

  “Shit!” she hissed quietly to herself, now moving back towards the entrance.

  She was almost at the doorway when she thought something grabbed her ankle. She tripped and fell onto the door lying belly-up on the floor, unseen in her blind panic.

  The heavy wooden slab lay belly-up on the floor, its iron hinges twisted. She’d tripped over the edge.

  “Of course,” she muttered. “Death by door. That’d be on brand.”

  She sat up, rubbing her shin, and reached back to run her fingers along the door’s edge. The wood was solid, thick, heavier than it looked. A faint idea began to form through the fog of terror and exhaustion.

  If she could get the door upright…

  She braced her legs and gripped the far edge. Her muscles protested immediately, but she grit her teeth and pulled. The door scraped against stone, shrieking softly, until it lifted enough to tilt. She walked her hands under it, shoulders burning, and heaved it up, inch by inch.

  It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t graceful. But after a lot of grunting and one near miss where it nearly dropped back onto her foot, she managed to lever the door upright into the doorway, bracing its top edge against the frame and its bottom edge against the floor. It sat slightly crooked, just enough to keep it from falling through to the other side.

  It didn’t close perfectly, there were gaps at the sides, and the top edge didn’t quite meet the stone, but it was something. A barrier. A symbolic middle finger to the universe.

  Her arms trembled. Sweat slicked her palms despite the cooling air.

  “Okay,” she panted. “Now make it…not fall over on my face.”

  There was just enough light leaking in through a few small, barred narrow windows, high up in the walls, to make out shapes. Her eyes found a solid wooden bench along one side of the tower, shoved against the wall like someone had abandoned it mid-use.

  Riley staggered over to it, grabbed one end, and pulled.

  It didn’t move.

  She pulled harder, digging her heels into the stone floor, muscles screaming. The bench scraped an inch. Another. It was heavier than it looked, made of thick, old wood built to withstand weather and soldiers and whatever else this place had once hosted.

  “Come on,” she hissed. “You and the door are going to be friends.”

  She got it halfway across the floor, then turned, put her back into it, and shoved with everything she had left. The bench slid against the floor until it pressed up against the lower middle of the door, supporting it from behind like a brace.

  She leaned on the bench, breathing in ragged gulps. The world felt slightly tilted.

  “Not…done…yet,” she told herself.

  On the other side of the doorway, she saw a second bench, this one shorter and battered, but still heavy. She dragged it across and wedged it crossways behind the first so the whole thing locked against the wall like a poor man’s portcullis. The inner stone wall facing the door provided strong support to wedge the second bench holding the first bench and door securely.

  A sad engineer somewhere would probably cry at the structure, but it was the best she had.

  She put both hands on the door and pushed.

  It didn’t move.

  She pushed harder. Nothing.

  “Great,” she muttered. “It can keep most things out. Also, I am now a very stylish, very doomed prisoner.”

  She stepped back, trying not to think about how easily something huge and strong could still smash through if it really wanted to.

  Her back found the cold stone wall. She pressed against it and tried to slow her breathing.

  The tower was small, barely wider than a one-room studio. The ceiling was low, beams blackened by age and smoke. The air smelled of dust, old wood, and a faint, earthy damp. Light dribbled in through the high slits of windows and a few cracks between stones, painting thin, pale smears on the floor.

  Outside, something moved.

  A soft thud. Grass whispering. The faint crunch of weight.

  Riley’s breath caught.

  Claws scraped lightly against stone, just outside the door. A low growl vibrated through the wood and into her bones.

  She shut her eyes for a heartbeat.

  I can’t leave.

  Another scrape, this time higher up, like something dragging rough nails along the stone frame.

  I can’t stay.

  A wet snuffling sound as the creature, or creatures, breathed at the cracks near the edge of the door. The sound of it sniffing at her only barrier made her skin crawl.

  Pick the lesser disaster, Riley.

  Running back out into the darkening forest with that thing right outside was suicide. Staying here with it scraping at the door felt like waiting to be dug out of a grave.

  She bit her lip and stayed very, very still. Some how Riley knew that staying silent wouldn’t be enough, it or they, had picked up her scent.

  Her eyes adjusted slowly to the low light.

  Shapes took form within the gloom: the benches she’d moved, a toppled table lying on its side near the far wall, broken bits of stone and rotted beams strewn across the floor, a patch of moss growing in a damp corner.

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  Near the center of the room, the floor dipped in a shallow circular depression, maybe three feet across. It looked deliberate, edges smooth and rimmed by slightly different stone. Like a basin or foundation for something that was no longer there.

  Riley frowned, filing that detail away without knowing why.

  Her gaze drifted up and to the right, to where she’d stumbled earlier. Something about that corner snagged her attention.

  Under a drift of dust and splintered wood, something caught the faint light, the edge of an engraved surface protruding from the rubble.

  She licked dry lips.

  Dark mystery object or clawed nightmare at the door. Sure. Cool. These are my options.

  The thing outside huffed again, circling. Its shadow passed briefly in front of one of the narrow windows, blocking the glow.

  Riley edged sideways along the wall, keeping as much distance between herself and the door as possible. Her steps crunched softly on grit.

  She crouched by the rubble in the corner and brushed aside chunks of wood and stone. Dust puffed into the air, making her cough. She waved it away and kept digging.

  Her fingertips touched something cold and perfectly smooth.

  She pushed more debris aside until she could see it properly.

  It was a cube. Fist-sized, slightly flattened on one side, made of a stone-like material that wasn’t quite stone. Its surface was a dull, milky gray, but when she moved it, light seemed to catch inside it rather than on it.

  Strange lines were etched across its surface, curving, intersecting grooves forming patterns that meant nothing to her. They weren’t letters. Not any she knew, anyway. More like runes carved by something that wanted to be remembered long after the bones were dust. Whatever the hell that thing outside was, it slammed into the makeshift barricade again, harder this time, hard enough that the entire door-and-bench contraption shuddered like it was made of cardboard instead of ancient timber. A sharp crack split through the air. Dust drifted down from the ceiling beams in lazy spirals, illuminated only by the wan moonlight filtering through the narrow windows.

  Riley froze where she knelt, fingers still wrapped around the strange cube half-buried in the rubble. Her heart kicked into overdrive so violently it hurt, hammering against her ribs as though trying to escape. Adrenaline shot through her system like a lightning bolt. Her hands began to tremble uncontrollably, and her breaths turned sharp and uneven, each one caught on the edge of panic.

  Another growl reverberated through the stone walls, low, predatory, filled with a hunger that felt old and practiced. It slithered through the cracks in the door and into her bones. Her predator circled, its claws scraping the outside stone in deliberate, hunting arcs. Then came the wet sound of sniffing. Slow. Methodical. Searching.

  It was tracking her.

  It knew she was here.

  Riley pressed herself tighter against the corner, clamping a hand over her mouth. Her lungs burned with the effort to stay silent. She shut her eyes, willing her heartbeat to stop making so much noise. Willing the creature to lose interest. To wander away. To find something, anything, else to eat.

  But the beast kept moving.

  Scrape. Sniff. Snarl.

  Round and round the tower.

  She imagined it pacing on four limbs: lean muscles rippling beneath coarse fur, jaws dripping, eyes catching the last scraps of dying sunlight like twin coals. Whatever it was, it had tracked her through the forest, followed her scent across the clearing, and now stood between her and every hope she had left.

  She didn’t know how long that thing prowled. Seconds? Minutes? An hour? Time bent and warped inside her fear-addled brain. Her body wanted to bolt, even though running would be suicide. Her legs twitched involuntarily, ready to sprint, ready to fling herself through the smallest gap in the stones if it meant escaping the nightmare breathing on the other side of the door.

  Then, slicing through the tension, something else echoed across the forest. A familiar sound returned, swollen and monstrous, as if the kennel had bred overnight, more rabid bears, more rage, a cacophony so brutal it startled the lesser beast outside the door.

  Riley’s breath stuttered.

  She heard the predator inhale sharply, not sniffing the tower, but upward, as if tasting a breeze carrying that far-off battle scent. It released a deep, throaty roar that vibrated through the barricade and rattled the benches bracing it. Then came the heavy thump of retreating steps. Fast. Urgent.

  The mystery guest was running away.

  Running from whatever hunted in the distance.

  Riley didn’t dare move until the last echo of fleeing footfalls vanished into the trees.

  Only then did her muscles unlock, and she sagged to the floor. Her hands slid down from her mouth. A huge, ragged exhale tore out of her before she could stop it—loud enough to make her wince. Tears spilled down her face in hot, silent streams. She pressed a hand to her forehead and let her breath tremble out of her in harsh bursts.

  She wasn’t okay. She wasn’t anywhere close to okay.

  This day had been too long, her fear too constant. She’d spent the past hours ricocheting between panic, disbelief, and pure survival instinct. She had been beyond her breaking point for so long she couldn’t even see it anymore. Every vibration of the door. Every echo of the wild beast’s steps. Every moment she forced herself to stay silent had carved deeper cracks into her already-shattered nerves.

  The sobs that came now weren’t dramatic, just small, stuttering gasps, the kind that happen when a person has nothing left to hold themselves together.

  When the crying finally subsided into hiccupping breaths, Riley pushed herself upright. It took everything she had. Her legs trembled violently under her weight, and she had to drag herself up the wall, gripping the cold stone until her fingernails scraped.

  She felt hollow. Drained. Like her muscles were made of overcooked noodles and her thoughts were drifting apart like smoke.

  But she needed somewhere to lie down. Somewhere softer than bare stone.

  Stumbling like a sleepwalker, she shuffled across the tower toward a half-rolled carpet lying crumpled near the far corner. It was frayed and dusty, patterned with age-stiffened fibers that probably harbored a decade’s worth of mildew. But to Riley, right now, it looked like a mattress carved from clouds.

  She tugged at the edges until it unrolled with a soft thump, then collapsed onto the center. The fabric scratched at her skin, the musty smell made her nose wrinkle, but none of it mattered. She pulled one side of the carpet over herself like a blanket, curling into a trembling ball.

  The distant animal fight continued a moment longer, echoing weirdly across the forest, then dwindled into nothing.

  A hush settled over the clearing.

  Crickets resumed their chirping.

  A gentle breeze rustled through the leaves.

  The night had become peaceful again.

  Finally, finally, Riley’s shaking slowed. Her muscles loosened one by one. Her eyelids drooped, too heavy to keep open. She let herself sink into the carpet, surrendering to exhaustion.

  Within minutes, she slipped into unconsciousness.

  Riley began to snore almost immediately, quiet, irregular, the sound of a body that had collapsed rather than rested. Every muscle in her frame hung slack. Every line of tension melted. Her breathing evened out, slow and deep.

  She had never experienced anything like this day. She’d never had her life threatened, not once, let alone multiple times. Her mind had been overloaded with fear, confusion, shock, and pain until there was nothing left but numbness. Sleep was no longer optional; it was the only thing her body could still do.

  Outside, the world continued. The forest whispered. The night deepened.

  Inside the tower, something changed.

  Softly. Subtly. Like a secret exhalation from the stones themselves.

  A faint hum stirred the air, thin and delicate, barely more than a vibration. It was the kind of sound a person would mistake for silence unless they were truly listening. The kind of sound heard only by beings born with the gift of hearing the heartbeat of magic.

  From the center of the tower, a faint blue light blossomed.

  At first, it was no brighter than the reflection of moonlight on water. A translucent glow that hovered just above the cracked stone floor, diffusing gently outward. It illuminated nothing beyond the interior walls. From the outside, the tower remained a dark, dead ruin.

  Inside, however, the glow drifted like mist.

  It moved toward Riley.

  The humming deepened by a single shade, though still barely audible. The blue light pooled around her boots first, outlining their worn soles in soft azure. Riley stirred in her sleep, mumbling unintelligibly.

  Then words.

  “No… no, leave me a…”

  Her voice faded, swallowed by the hush of the room.

  The light brightened, tracing up her legs in a slow, careful sweep. It paused at her chest, hovering over her heart. The glow intensified for a moment, just enough to paint her face in faint sapphire.

  Then it drifted upward to her temple.

  Paused, and again the glow intensified for a moment.

  Hummed once.

  The light flickered.

  Dimmed.

  And dissolved into the air like breath on a cold morning.

  The tower fell silent once more.

  Riley remained asleep, unaware of anything that had happened. Unaware of the way the air itself seemed to settle around her differently now. Unaware of the quiet, invisible shift that had taken place where she lay wrapped in the dusty carpet.

  She exhaled softly in her sleep, sinking deeper into whatever dream her mind had retreated to.

  Outside, the night continued undisturbed.

  Inside, the tower waited.